Adam: When we came home, and we saw the break-in had happened, you know, first we called the police. And then I think we maybe called the bank and went around the house and, you know, saw all the things that had been opened and tried to take an inventory of everything that was gone. We thought the police were going to show up immediately. That didn’t happen. They came the next day. So we were really focused on the list. But I think, I would say about 45 minutes into the recognition of it happening, we prayed; really just asking God to help us navigate through it. And then Jude said, and I believe we shared this… 

Brooke Yeah, we did. But just a little recap. 

Adam: Jude said something to the effect of, “Dad, I got the impression that God is going to do something amazing through this. That God stories, or stories are going to come out of this that are going to be amazing.” So we thought we would share some of those stories. Because there’s been three that we thought would be good to share on the podcast. And not only…we’re trying to be a little bit more proactive about allowing you guys to know who we are and our personalities and why we do what we do, along with sharing the testimonies. My heart was always to share testimonies and never to be in front of a camera or on a microphone, but I think one of the shifts that’s taken places through the robbery is God, I feel, is kind of calling us out from that role and being a little bit more vocal about our own personal journey and, and what’s happening in our lives. 

Brooke: And a little more engaged with you, the listener, I think. Yeah. 

Adam: Yeah, so that happened on a Wednesday.

Brooke: And then Thursday night or Friday night, I had a couple of friends reach out to me and say, “Hey, can I create a GoFundMe page for you guys?” And I was like, “Oh, gosh, let me talk to Adam.” Because that’s not…We don’t really like being in the spotlight, honestly. And that really, it kind of felt weird and yucky, honestly, asking people to help us out in the midst. But our friends shared with us, “People want to help.”

Adam: I also think it’s really humbling. It’s hard to ask for help. And in ministry, you’re trying to help other people and when you need help, it seems a little selfish and a little, well there’s other people that need more than us. And so you have to wrestle through all that. And then really just finally coming to the conclusion, Yeah, we really could use people’s help and we know that we needed encouragement for sure. Because it was a, it was all the emotions on repeat.

Brooke: Quickly, after our friends shared on really, Facebook and other social media channels, but mostly Facebook. People shared what had happened to us. We’re very involved in our community, school wise and stuff like that. So yeah, we had a lot of people just reach out instantly. And a lot of people donate instantly. It was really humbling, and really beautiful to see God work through the hearts and hands of others.

Adam: Yeah, we had, we had people buy us meals. We had people call and pray for us. We had text messages. We had Instagram messages, just a ton of encouragement and love and yeah, the financial donations. After, I would say, Sunday or Monday, we started thinking, Okay, well, we have been made whole on what was stolen, based on just the donations that came through. 

Brooke: So God has already restarted what the locusts have eaten. 

Adam: I don’t know how we would have made it through, had it not been for y’all’s encouragement, and support and love. So I just think, it gave me a lot of confidence to keep going in ministry, that just built my faith in, God can take my – specifically for me the failure of not being insured – He can take that and redeem it. And in a way, it takes off a lot of pressure for me to have everything perfect. It’s more about my yes to Him, and stepping out in faith and trying to build relationships with people. And we just saw that bear fruit. And when, when we needed it the most we saw the church, in sort of like the darkest, in a dark time, we saw the church be really bright. Because of that dark time.

Brooke: Yeah, and people who didn’t know the Lord come around us too and just really love us and shower us with kindness and goodness.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. People that didn’t even know who we are friends of friends. Yeah. relationships. I had people I hadn’t talked to in 15 years reached out. So that was amazing. So then the other story is…basically that was an Unseen Story. 

Brooke: Yeah, the abundance of God’s people providing. 

Adam: Then we went to Upper Room Frisco, three weeks ago now. We went on a Sunday. It was our first time there. We just wanted to go check it out. We stood behind this couple and during worship, his phone was face up on his seat. So we’re all standing for worship, and his phone kept going off. And it was you know, the screen was coming on and I saw it scroll across. So there was a name and then it said, “My son,” and then it said, “family” with an exclamation point. And that happened a few times and being in worship, I was just thinking about, that’s interesting, you know, being a part of God’s family and being a son. You know, we can call Him at any time. Sometimes, you know, we have to call multiple times. We don’t always feel like we get an answer, but that availability is there, that we can call Him. And we…

Brooke: Yea, that’s cool that that’s what you’re thinking when, you know, you’re seeing that. I love how the Lord used that to just minister to you straight away.

Adam: Yeah, it was cool. So after like the fifth or sixth time, I started getting a little worried. I didn’t want to interrupt worship, but eventually I tapped the guy on the shoulder and I said, “Hey, I think your son is trying to get ahold of you.” So he checks out his phone, he leans over to his wife, and she excused herself and, you know, goes out of the sanctuary. Probably 15-20 minutes later, she comes back, worships over, it’s sort of the meet and greet time, and I overheard a little bit shared, that her son had his wallet stolen. And then we got interrupted and iinto another conversation. So I didn’t get all the details. All I heard was the wallet was stolen and their son is headed into college. He was pretty distraught about the whole thing. 

So during the service, it was a, it was a cool sermon, a lot of stories. We heard a lot of cool stories. One of the stories the pastor told was about him actively going out to try and share the gospel. They were relying on and asking that the Holy Spirit would give them insights into people. And they were in the grocery store and he said, his heart started, almost like it skipped a beat or picked up the pace a little bit. Yeah. And he took that not as I’m dying, or, you know, or some heartburn or something. I don’t know. He thought, he thought, “well, maybe that’s something from the Lord. That’s weird. Maybe that’s something from the Lord.” And about that time, a woman walked down the aisle and he decided that he needed to go pray for her. And he engages with her, “Hi ma’am. We’re out praying for people. could you, could you use prayer for anything. And oh, by the way, I just wonder, do you have any issues with your heart?” And she was like, “Oh, my gosh, how did you know?” And apparently was a little freaked out by the whole thing because he was like, “Oh, great. I want to pray for you.” He closed his eyes and he,  I think he went to put his hand on her shoulder, and she took off. Apparently, she was a little too freaked out. So, but somewhere in the sermon, it was this whole sermon about just being aware of how Holy Spirit can speak to us and the gifts are available for today. They’re not anything spooky or scary. They’re, they’re actually a gift to us. To be aware that God speaks today. 

Brooke: And, and then I’m like, okay, service is over. We got to get our kiddo to work. We gotta get him fed before we get him to work, and you tell me, “Hey, we, we got to stay. I’ve got to tell these people what happened to us. I’ve got to tell them our story, because it’s important.” And I was like, we don’t have time for that. We gotta go. And you said, “Just, just be patient. God will make up the time. I’m supposed to do this.”

Adam: Yeah, I just felt, so listening to that story and thinking, what are the chances that two weeks ago we had this robbery take place? And you know… 

Brooke: It was a week ago at that time. Just a few days. 

Adam: So much of our things were stolen from us. What are the chances that that’s a coincidence? That we happen to sit behind this family whose son has his wallet stolen? And, I am getting emotional about it. And so, I just felt like that I could not say anything, but I just felt like that was an opportunity. That the Lord was inviting us into something. And, and I felt like it was important. During the sermon I was thinking this. And I thought, well, I’m gonna, we need to share our testimony. And I thought also, just as we have been restored, I should restore their son. Whatever, whatever was stolen. 

And so I tap the guy on the shoulder. Service is over. I tap the guy on the shoulder and yeah, there’s a little bit of a rush because we’ve got a lengthy drive and Jude has to be at work and we still have to stop by the house. But I give him sort of the high level, “Hey, our house was broken into, and we’ve seen God redeem and restore that. I overheard about your son, I’d love to reach out to him and just encourage him, that God hasn’t forgotten him. God loves him. He’s part of God’s family. And, restore whatever was lost monetarily to him.” And so as I’m sharing that, the mom starts crying and then the dad starts crying. And eventually, the dad was like, “You have no idea. We almost lost my son last year to suicide. He, COVID has really hit him hard. And he’s been isolated and really questioning his faith, and where is God in all of this? And he was just blown away by that. And he said, “Before you even said anything, I was gonna ask you guys if we could all pray for my son.”  And so it was like, just really cool, like, it was like God was there. 

Brooke: Yeah, it was awesome. 

Adam: And He had connected us. And so we, we just prayed. Each of us prayed for the son and then later that night, I was able to call him. The dad gave me his number. I called him and got to encourage him and remind him of his identity in Christ  and then I Pay-Pal-ed him the money that he was out because of the wallet. And so that was that story number two. Yeah. And then Any thoughts?

Brooke: I mean, I felt like it was really more your experience, I just got to be a part of it. I think that’s really, really cool that God used that time and used that. It was literally, we came home on a Wednesday, and we went to church on Sunday. So it was literally like five days, four or five days after the break-in, not a week or two.

Adam: I thought it was a week following. 

Brooke: Hu-uh.

Adam: So the third story. One of the things I had shared was that a friend of ours who’s a missionary had given us a $200 donation, and I had called him and thanked him. And it’s like, you know, I knew that $200 is a lot of money for them, and he didn’t need to do that. And so I felt a little, it was humbling that he would give that much money to us. 

Brooke: Yeah, too much! It  just seemed like too much. 

Adam: So I wanted to…So I ended up just wanting to encourage him and you know, thank him. I ended up praying for him and I prayed that God would bless him 10x – which is not a normal, not not normally the way that I pray. But I do remember praying that. So then he calls me probably two weeks ago now, it was probably a week and a half or so after I had prayed that. He was like, “Dude,” he called me on a Sunday night late. He was like, “Dude, you’re not gonna believe this…” One of their supporters, they went over to their house to hang out and sit by the pool and let the kids play, and they handed him a big envelope, a heavy envelope. And the wife was like, “Hey, don’t lose that. There’s $2,000 in cash in that envelope.” And so he called me and just was blown away. 

Brooke: I just think that’s amazing. 

Adam: You know, and he was telling me like, “I didn’t, when you prayed that I was like, yeah, that would be nice.” But he just, he didn’t have he didn’t believe that that could happen. So yeah, I think we are learning so much by just being. I feel like we’re like scribes where we’re just trying to put the stories down. Not on paper, but in recorded form, audio and now video and we’re just trying to be faithful with the people that God brings us and faithful with where we believe He’s taking us. And along the way our faith is being challenged in numerous ways, so many ways. But the moments like that $2,000. moments like Frisco where I just felt God had put us together. It’s those kinds of moments where you see God, and you experience something that’s beyond what you thought was possible. It’s literally beyond your understanding and yet, intellectually, you can’t, I suppose you could dismiss it as coincidence, but it just something resonates that that’s God. You feel it, you’re in it. And those are the kind of stories and moments that we’re after  and, and we hope continue to bring you from all across the spectrum. I want a wide swath of, of different ethnicities and age groups and nationalities. That’s our hope for moving on to YouTube, that this would grow and spread and we would, would have the opportunity to get stories from all over the place and that they would bolster your faith in God’s power.

Brooke: Yeah. For me, like, I haven’t had those specific encounters, if you will, experiences or like, you know, stories specifically come through me, like you have with this. But I will say one thing that has happened for me in the midst of all this is, I’ve had several friends ask me like, “Are you doing okay? Are you scared? Are you okay to be at home? You know, what was your first reaction?” And honestly, like, for a while, I thought that maybe my tear ducts were broken. Because I think I cried for maybe three to five minutes total in all of this at, like what had happened. But really, like, I haven’t been sad, I haven’t been discouraged. I haven’t. It was more like shock. And then just a sense of, of, I don’t know, in like invasion, I don’t know, like an invasion of space or privacy. More than anything else. And I think, you know, only a few things were taken that can’t be replaced. But overall, I have experienced a ton of peace, and a ton of freedom. And a ton of just like, “it’s gonna be okay.” Like, not worrying at all. And I just, I’ve been thinking back to, I used to drive a little Honda Civic, and I loved that car. And I would have my car broken into all the time. And I was, every time it happened, I was so angry and so violated and I would cry and couldn’t get over it. And it would happen frequently. I mean, I think it happened like four times. And I just think about the difference between my experience now and it was our home, to my experience then and it was just my car. And the peace and the freedom from anger and all of that. It’s, that is supernatural. That is supernatural.

Adam: That is good. Okay, so I think that wraps it up. 

Brooke: So that’s our update. We hope you guys are encouraged as well. 

Adam: Yeah and I just want to say again, we are exceedingly, abundantly thankful for all of you guys that have reached out and encouraged and bought us meals and prayed for and donated. It has meant the world to us and God has worked through you guys. 

Brooke: Amen. Yeah, you are a part of our lives and our story now, forever.